Three pillars of the European Union
The
Treaty of Maastricht which established the
European Union, divided EU policies into three main areas, called
pillars.
# The first or '
Community' pillar concerns economic, social and environmental policies. # The second or '
Common Foreign and Security Policy' (CFSP) pillar concerns foreign policy and military matters. # The third or '
Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters' (PJCC) pillar concerns co-operation in the fight against crime. This pillar was originally named 'Justice and Home Affairs'.
Within each pillar, a different balance is struck between the
supranational and
intergovernmental principles.
Supranationalism is strongest in the first pillar. Its function generally corresponded at first to the three European Communities (
European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC),
European Economic Community (EEC) and
Euratom) whose organizational structure had already been unified in the
1960s through the
Merger Treaty. Later, through the
Treaty of Maastricht the word "Economic" was removed from the EEC, so it became simply the EC. Then with the
Treaty of Amsterdam additional areas would be transferred from the third pillar to the first. In
2002, the ECSC ceased to exist because the treaty which established it, the
Treaty of Paris, had expired.
In the CFSP and PJCC pillars the powers of the
European Parliament, the
Commission and
European Court of Justice with respect to the
Council are significantly limited, without however being altogether eliminated. The balance struck in the first pillar is frequently referred to as the "community method", since it is that used by the European Community.
The pillar structure had its historical origins in the negotiations leading up to the
Maastricht treaty. It was desired to add powers to the Community in the areas of foreign policy, security and defence policy, asylum and immigration policy, criminal co-operation, and judicial co-operation.
However, some member-states opposed the addition of these powers to the Community on the grounds that they were too sensitive to national sovereignty for the community method to be used, and that these matters were better handled intergovernmentally. To the extent that at that time the Community dealt with these matters at all, they were being handled intergovernmentally, principally in
European Political Cooperation (EPC).
As a result, these additional matters were not included in the European Community; but were tacked on externally to the European Community in the form of two additional 'pillars'. The first additional pillar (Common Foreign and Security Policy, CFSP) dealt with foreign policy, security and defence issues, while the second additional pillar (JHA, Justice and Home Affairs), dealt with the remainder.
Recent amendments in the
treaty of Amsterdam and the
treaty of Nice have made the additional pillars increasingly supranational. Most important among these has been the transfer of policy on asylum, migration and judicial co-operation in civil matters to the Community pillar, effected by the Amsterdam treaty. Thus the third pillar has been renamed Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters, or PJCC. The term
Justice and Home Affairs is still used to cover both the third pillar and the transferred areas.
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| Evolution of the structures of the European Union. |
The draft
European Constitution, if ratified by all member states, is meant to simplify and unify the operations of the European Union. As such the European Community is to be fully absorbed into the European Union and the three pillars of the EU are to be merged into a single structure.
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The three pillars of the European Union European NAvigator
See also: European Union law
